7. Conclusion

The aim of this article was to present steady-state process simulators based on a modular approach and sequential solving. We described their main components: the pure and binary body database, the physico-chemical properties server, the module library and the solvers for systems of non-linear algebraic equations.

These simulators are easy to use, provided you have mastered the basic concepts of module and flow, and have a good general knowledge of information structuring, models for calculating thermodynamic properties and phase equilibria, unit operation models and solution strategies. It's easy to see why they are so popular and widely used in computer-aided process design, analysis and control.

To date, it appears that the unavailability of pure-body data, thermodynamic models and unit operations adapted to the very wide diversity of...